17 July 2024
This is likely the last chance I’ll have to get some hiking in before the big trip and my last chance to up my pack weight and mileage, so today I’m headed to Mirror Lake State Park. I spotted the park’s sign on my way out to Gov. Dodge and discovered it has the long looping paths I enjoy, so I booked a site and drove down.
Or, I tried to…
I came around a curve and found a parking lot of cars. I didn’t have a strong enough signal to investigate for myself, so I called Matt to confirm that a long stretch 1-94 was indeed closed:
Yes, yes it is.
Apparently, an early morning accident shut down eastbound 94 while they did some crash scene reconstruction so all traffic was being diverted off the freeway. Unfortunately, I had just passed a u-turn, so all I could do was creep along and watch jealously as other cars (and even some semis!) looped back to the exit just before this stand-still.
Fortunately, by the time I reached the closure, 94 had reopened and the rest of my drive went smoothly.
Welcome to Mirror Lake State Park!
I possibly should have gone back for a better, unobstructed picture. Oops!
Once again, my site was unoccupied last night, so I was able to park my car here while I hiked:
Today’s hike is fueled by this giant cookie from Bella Goose:
I’m staying at the Bluewater Bay Campground (I marked my site with a star):
The full version of this map can be found on the WI DNR website
The plan for today is to hike those red loops to the south, stop back at my site for water and a snack, then head north to Echo Rock and the blue trails.
I really hope that giant puddle isn’t a sign of things to come…
The trail alternated between grassy and woodchippy:
Both were nice to walk on, and both contained fun fungi!
I may have decapitated this one while trying to move the grass out of the way.
Ghost pipes!
Partial fairy ring:
Unfortunately, the bugs here are pretty terrible, especially the mosquitoes and while I didn’t bring my floppy hat this time, my head net still works well to keep them away from my face:
I learned from my last trip and brought my own stick from home.
The red trail is more of a bike trail, so a lot of it looked like this:
I stopped wondering if I would pick up any tick to fearing how many I’d find tonight. Good luck, permethrin!
I feel like I’m usually decent at following trails, but I most definitely went the wrong way on this first red loop and missed my turn off to the second loop. I should have pulled out my GPS earlier to check when I came across a shortcut pointing in the wrong direction, but I didn’t and eventually I ended up right where I had started. But I’m determined to get 10 miles in today, so I kept going on the loop, along the path I had already hiked, and found the junction I had missed. On to the 2nd loop!
This trail was a combination of steep uphills (that had been washed out by the recent rain):
And muddy downhills:
Definitely not my favorite, but having my walking stick helped find solid ground (or vault me over the squishy parts).
A fork in the road:
A bee in the field:
A nice chunky mushroom:
I didn’t take a ton of pictures on these loops- every time I stopped, the bugs would swarm. I’m essentially a walking mosquito bite.
I finally made it back to my orange trail, which will eventually take me back to my campsite, but I once again took a wrong turn, though it did lead me to this interesting skeleton:
No idea who he used to be.
As I was turning around, I heard a rustling noise and a momma deer and two babies stepped out of the woods!
I call this the Vitruvian deer:
They were mostly unbothered by me so I was able to get several pictures before they sauntered off:
The rest of the hike back to camp was uneventful and after refilling my water bottles, I hit the trail again!
Despite a few muddy areas, this trail was so much nicer than the red trail:
Wide and wood-chipped… so much nicer to hike on!
One of two possible return trails is down in that gorge:
Though I think I’ll probably take the other trail because going down into the gorge means I eventually have to hike back up.
A happy log!
Even when the trail narrowed, it was still much nicer than the first half of today’s hikes:
This is Echo Rock!
I’m not really sure where the name comes from, but the supper club across the water had a singer and the sound carried quite well- maybe it has to do with how well you can hear here?
That rock outcropping looks like a snout:
It’s really hard to jump with a full pack on! I’ve got no ups 🙁
Onward!
This part of the hike was strange- Mirror Lake is close enough to the freeway that you can hear traffic basically wherever you are in the park, but something about hiking through a nice prairie and seeing semis pass just seemed wrong:
Entrance to Ishnala Supper Club:
A really cool old tree!
Today was a good hiking day- I put in 11 miles! and while my body is definitely feeling it, I don’t feel too terrible and my 20 pound pack wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
This dinner, however, turned out to be one of the worst things I’ve ever eaten. It’s Peak Refuel’s Beef Stroganoff and I think their only seasoning is salt (plus seasoned salt). I made it about halfway through before giving up and flushing it (sorry camp toilet!).
Fortunately, I’ve got enough granola bars and other snacks to tide me over til morning. Unfortunately, the traffic noise is surprisingly loud for how far into the woods my site is and I had trouble falling asleep. I was reading on my phone when something came out of the woods and walked through my site. I think it was a deer? but there was no way I was going to open my tent door and find out!
Also, tonight’s tick-check turned up nothing! Hopefully that’s because the permethrin’s working and not because I’m a bad tick-checker…